In this thorough history of Kennedy's civil rights record over the course of his entire political career, Nick Bryant argues that Kennedy's shrewd handling of the race issue in his early congressional campaigns blinded him as president to the intractability of the simmering racial crisis in America. By focusing on mainly symbolic gestures, says Bryant, Kennedy missed crucial opportunities to confront the obstructionist Southern bloc and to enact genuine reform, his inertia emboldening white supremacists and forcing black activists to adopt increasingly militant tactics.

"Knowledgeable and perceptive ... Bryant understands that Kennedy's instincts were decent but that he was ruled by innate caution and a keen sense of political realities, at least as he understood them."—Washington Post